


Picture Perfect

by ImOutOfMyVulcanMind (LoopyLu94)



Category: Almost Human
Genre: F/M, Fluff, John being a badass, Threats, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 09:11:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16851271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoopyLu94/pseuds/ImOutOfMyVulcanMind
Summary: Reader spends her lunches sketching a certain Detective. They don’t speak and don’t know each other. Until one day fate throws them together.





	Picture Perfect

It wasn’t exactly the best of days to be eating lunch outside; the sky was overcast, threatening rain on you all, and it was cold. Not a biting freeze, but chilly enough to make it mildly miserable. Yet here you were anyway, sitting on a bench in the middle of the park, working your way through a sandwich and some coffee, sketching in your pad as your muse sat on the bench opposite you. **  
**

You’d first spotted him back in the summer when eating outside the office actually made sense. He and his friend had walked by you, your muse stuffing himself with noodles while his companion looked on in exasperation and said something about salt levels. They seated themselves a few benches over from you, much to your disappointment at the time. Because the man eating noodles had caught your attention personally and as an artist. He had an interesting face. Not classically handsome, but certainly attractive, and your fingers had itched to draw him. But a quick glimpse hadn’t been enough to draw from memory, and you couldn’t exactly go up to a total stranger and say ‘hey, you’re cute, can I stare at you and draw you?’ Well okay, maybe you could’ve, but talking to strangers was definitely not your thing. Especially really cute strangers. So you’d never summoned up the courage.

Instead, you’d sat on the opposite side the following day, hoping they’d return. To your delight, they did. They sat in the same place, only now you had a view of your muse. It quickly became a pattern. You’d spend every lunch in the park, on the same bench, and almost every day the two men would come and sit opposite you. Only your muse ever ate for some reason. You never talked to him, and he never even so much as looked in your direction, leaving you free to sketch him to your heart’s content.

It was great. Your muse was an animated fellow, giving you a wide range of facial expressions to try your hand at, and your pad quickly started to fill up. Occasionally you caught pieces of conversation, but never much. One day you heard your muses friend call him John, but that was all the information you had on him.

Until one day when you’d been sitting and waiting, you heard a shout. Looking up, you’d seen a man sprinting down the path towards you with John and his friend in hot pursuit. John had tackled the man to the ground right in front of you, immediately aiming his gun at him. Between the two of them, they’d soon handcuffed the man.

In your shock, you hadn’t moved a muscle, something John’s friend seemed to notice. He’d asked if you were okay, and after you’d nodded, he’d smiled and introduced himself as Dorian and John as Detective John Kennex. John had looked over at you and apologized for the disruption before dragging the criminal away.

That was the first and last time you’d spoken to either of them and if they remembered you the next time you’d sat opposite each other, they didn’t say anything. And you never mentioned just how incredibly sexy John had looked taking down the perp.

And so the pattern continued. It felt more personal now that you knew a little about them, but you didn’t want to stop. You enjoyed drawing John, and occasionally Dorian, especially when he seemed even more fed up with whatever nonsense John was going on about than normal. You had to admit you were probably more than a little infatuated with John, but you were happy with your mostly daily sketch sessions.

Lunch was starting to draw to a close, and you were beginning to think about finishing up and heading back inside when someone sat next to you. You didn’t think anything of it until they draped an arm across the back of the bench behind you, and you felt something hard and round, press against the back of your head with a quiet click.

“Don’t move. Don’t react,” the man whispered, sliding himself close to you. “You do anything I don’t tell you too and I’ll blow your pretty brains out, got it?”

You managed a weak nod, trying to blink away the tears that had welled up.

“Good girl. Now put your things away. Slowly.”

Doing as he said, you managed to stuff your things into your bag haphazardly. Maybe this was just a mugging. Maybe he’d take your bag and go. No such luck. “We’re going to get up, and you’re going to come with me, okay, doll?

“What do you want?” You asked, voice cracking slightly. You stared ahead at John and Dorian, hoping to get their attention. Did the stranger know they were cops? Probably not.

For your question, you were rewarded with having the gun shoved harder against the back of your neck. “Shut up, bitch,” the man hissed, “Don’t think I won’t use this.”

John must’ve felt you staring. He looked your way, his expression changing instantly. Luckily the man didn’t notice. “I’m sorry,” you whispered, clutching your bag tightly with one hand. The other lay on top of it, pinky and ring fingers curled into your palm, while your index and middle finger lay straightforward. A crude gun symbol, but you prayed John would see and understand. Risking a glance at his face, you caught him giving a subtle nod. “I won’t do anything again. Just please don’t shoot.”

“That’s what I like to hear. Now up.” The man prodded, and you rose with him, unsure if your legs would even hold you. He pushed you forward, keeping his arm just behind you, gun still pressed subtly against your back. You walked, forced to keep the steady pace the man set. You wanted to look behind you, see if John was doing anything, but you didn’t dare.

You were nearly at the exit of the park when suddenly the man grabbed you, spinning you around and placing the gun to the side of your head. John and Dorian were there. “Take another step, and she’s dead.”

“We’re just heading home, man. We’re not looking for trouble,” John said, hands raised.

“Bullshit. You two reek of cop. How’d you know, huh? Was it you? Did you tell them?” The man squeezed you tighter, arm around your neck.

“She didn’t do anything. Let her go.”

“Or what? The second you do anything I’ll kill her.”

John glared, but you knew the man was right. Even if John could pull out his gun without the bastard shooting you, he didn’t have a clean shot.

For a few seconds, you all stood at an impasse. “Can’t have you two following me. Goodbye.” The man pointed the gun, John and Dorian leaping out of the way as soon as he opened fire. You took your opportunity. You elbowed him in the stomach as hard as you could, using the moment to break free from his loosened grip. Swinging your bag around to hit him as hard as you could, you dived to the left, hitting the ground hard.

“BITCH!” The man yelled, and a bullet narrowly missed your head as you scrambled for cover. “Get back here!” A hand wrapped around your ankle, pulling you back, but he didn’t get far. Shots rang out from behind him, and the grip on your ankle disappeared. Risking a glance behind you, you saw the man slumped on the ground by your feet, blood oozing out from several bullet wounds.

A shuddering breath escaped you, the tears that had been lingering finally falling. John was suddenly next to you, the shock of it making you flinch. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?” He asked, reaching out to gently help you sit up.

“N-no. I’m fine…I think.”

John nodded. “An ambulance is on the way, they’ll check you out.”

You didn’t say anything, looking past him to the body. “Is he dead?”

John followed your gaze, “Yeah…It was a risky thing you did, he could’ve killed you still,” he sighed, watching you drop your gaze. “But it was brave too. You helped both my partner and me. Thank you.” John offered up a small smile which you found yourself returning. In the distance, you could hear sirens approaching.

The next few hours went by in a whirl. You were taken to hospital to be checked over, and told the worst you had were a couple of scrapes on your knees. Then you had to give a statement about the whole thing without being told anything in return before you were eventually allowed to go home.

It was a relief, to finally get into your flat and lock the door behind you. You showered, changed into something comfortable, and grabbed your good bottle of whiskey on your way over to the sofa. After everything that had happened, you figured, you deserved a drink. It was still almost too much to take in. If you hadn’t been sitting opposite John…You shuddered to think of what would’ve happened. Where would you be now? Would you even be alive? It made you feel sick to your stomach.

A knock on your door made you jump out of your skin, your leg hitting the coffee table and knocking the whiskey over. It landed on the floor with a crash. You cursed, watching the amber liquid soak into the rug through blurred eyes.

“Y/N? Y/N, it’s John Kennex. You alright?”

John. Scrubbing your sleeve across your eyes, you picked your way over the broken bottle and over to the door, putting on the best smile you could as you opened it. “Detective, what are you doing here?”

“Dropped by to see how you were doing,” John told you, taking the state of you in with a frown. “I heard a smash. Everything okay?”

“I…I knocked a bottle over. It’s fine,” you mumbled, drawing the oversized cardigan you were around you more tightly.

“You don’t look fine, Y/N,” John said, features softening as he looked at you. “May I?”

Having the feeling he wasn’t about to give up without a fight, you nodded, stepping aside to let him in. “You came halfway across the City just to check up on me?” You asked, moving back to the sofa and dropping to your knees so you could start picking up the broken glass, attempting to not look like the mess you actually were.

“Read on your file that you lived alone. Figured someone should stop by and see how you’re doing.” John followed you over, crouching down next to you and stilled your hands. “Let me. Your hands are shaking.”

You did as he ordered, sitting back on the sofa as John made quick work of cleaning up the mess you’d made. It made you feel even worse, dropping your head into your hands with a sigh. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. After what you went through today I’m honestly surprised to not find you curled up in a corner. I would be in your shoes.” John came to sit next to you, reaching to rub your back. It was meant to be soothing you knew, but it just reminded you of that man, so you recoiled. Immediately John pulled back.

“Sorry,” you whispered again.

“It’s understandable. It all is, and it’ll take a while.”

You mustered up another smile. “Thank you. For everything.”

“Just doing my job, ma'am.”

“I don’t know what would’ve happened if you hadn’t been there today…” You sighed, running a hand through your hair. “Who was he? Do you know? What did he want?”

“He was part of a crime ring. A big one it turns out. They deal with a manner of things, but one of their specialties is human trafficking.”

John watched you closely as his words sunk in. “Human trafficking? He…he was trying to get me? He was grabbing me? In the middle of the day like that?”

“It’s a new tactic we’ve seen recently. They know people on their own at night protect themselves. They’re on the defense, carry weapons. In the day, in public, people aren’t expecting it. They think they’re safe. So when someone comes at them like they did with you, it terrifies them, makes them panic and not think straight about how to get help. They wear face-makers so it’s impossible to tell who they are at first.”

It made sense, even if it made your skin crawl. You weren’t sure if you wanted to know the answer to your next question, but you had to ask. “And after they get someone? Who do they sell them too?”

“We don’t know. All we know is that when they get someone they smuggle them over the Wall, and after that…” John trailed off, shaking his head.

It felt like you’d been punched. You’d known nothing good would’ve happened, but that…to be taken over the Wall. You’d be gone and never found again. Your shoulders shook as you started to cry, the information too much to cope with. It would’ve been better to die than to end up in that life.

“Can I hug you?” John asked you softly, waiting for your shakey nod before wrapping his arms around you, and pulled you close. You leaned into him, taking comfort in his warmth.

John let you cry, rubbing your back gently in comfort. Even when the tears ran dry, he kept holding you.

“Guess I need to stop having lunch in the park,” you chuckled weakly, voice hoarse.

“You could always eat with us. Unless it interrupts your sketching sessions.”

You pulled back with a frown, wiping your eyes. “What?”

“I had a second reason to come here tonight.” John reached into his jacket and pulled out your sketchpad. “I found this at the scene. Got your name on it.”

You felt yourself blush immediately. It must’ve fallen out of your bag in the scuffle. “I…”

“You’re really good. Think you flatter me a bit much though; I’m not that handsome,” John laughed, setting the pad down.

He seemed okay with it all, which relaxed you. You smiled. “I draw what I see.”

“You think I’m handsome then?” John smirked.

“Not exactly hard to look at,” you smirked back, feeling some of the tension start to drain from you. Being around John was so easy. It was calming.

“You know how to compliment a guy,” John chuckled with a grin.

“Wouldn’t want to lie to a police officer.”

“I would have to cuff you if you did.”

“You’re meant to be putting me off from lying.”

John’s eyes twinkled as he laughed. “I should’ve guessed you’d be trouble.”

“I think you like it, Detective.”

“Oh, I definitely do. But I prefer to buy a lady dinner before letting her get into too much trouble.”

“Are you asking  me on a date, Detective Kennex?”

“I believe I am, Miss Y/L/N. Saturday night?”

John knew what he was doing. Saturday was far away enough to give you a couple days to recuperate but close enough that you’d have something to look forward to. “Sounds perfect.”

~

You smiled down as your phone chimed with an incoming text. It was lunchtime so you grabbed your things and headed out into the beautiful summers day. The walk to the park was short, and it was only a few minutes later when you spotted the ones you were looking for.

John and Dorian were sitting on a bench already, John halfway through a carton of noodles.

“Do you know how much salt is in those things?” You teased, plucking the chopsticks from his hand and eating the mouthful.

“Then why are you eating them?!” John grumbled, moving the carton so you could sit yourself on his lap.

“Saving you from yourself, Detective,” you chuckled, leaning down to kiss John quickly. “How was your morning?”

“Boring for once. Better now,” John smiled, wrapping an arm around your waist.

“Good.” You kissed John again. “I finished packing the rest of my stuff last night.”

“I’ll pick you up after work and we can go get it.”

You nodded, helping yourself to another mouthful of noodles. It was hard to believe that you were moving in with John. A little under a year since the incident and everything was perfect.

You smiled, resting against John’s chest. “I can’t wait.”

 

(Bonus photo of John's picture perfect face) 


End file.
